p.26 in Room to Write By Bonni Goldberg
Write about an aspect of nature, either human or environmental, that intrigues you. Or, spend one page on both senses of nature and then connect the two.
I wrote this over a year ago.
The most interesting thing I find about nature is murder. Well, not murder exactly only humans murder or do they? A dog will eat it’s young if hungry and there’s no food to be found. An immature rabbit will chew hers to death if she was too young to care for them. A lion will kill cubs that aren’t his. So they are capable of killing but not of murdering why? Animals do not have a sense of right and wrong, they have no moral code. Yet even then they do not kill without reason or what they think is reason. A cat will naturally catch a mouse that it won’t eat but will leave on your bed, why? Why does it do this? Instinct but why do they continue to have an instinct that is useless to them. Why do we have instincts that are useless to us?
Surely in the entire world there have been animals that kill without reason or maybe we give them a reason when there is none. A hungry dog eating her young is reasonable, especially when she is tied up. But then why do people say “what made this dog go against nature and eat its young?” The dog did not go AGAINST nature it went with nature. A dog has no sense of what is right and wrong, it was hungry she couldn’t feed her babies so she ate them. Now she can live to have more babies that will thrive. Nature is survival of the fittest and with no food those puppies wouldn’t be fit at all.
Why do people insist on giving animals human attributes? My dog does this because he’s lonely. Your dog does that because it’s a DOG. It behaves how a dog behaves. Dogs are pack animals and they need people, not only for social but for the hierarchy. A dog needs to know where it stands if it doesn’t, it assumes it’s boss and the dog does what he wants.
I do not assume to know all about dogs and nor can I blame these people to much as I was one of them. I gave a guinea pig a heart attack because at the age of 4 I thought the guinea pig would have fun on a trampoline, like I did. I would not think this would give her a heart attack as I did not know what one was but I was smart enough to know that I needed to watch my feet so as not to squish her.
I then have to look at all the times I assumed my pets would be happy if I gave them things I was happy with. For Runner, my hamster, I built with pop cans a jungle gym for him to play on. This was useless as he did not play nor did he ever use my pop can gym. But how I thought he would love it as I would of loved things to climb on like that. Even long before the pop can gym I was putting my toys in the guinea pig cage, I cannot remember this but I have seen the picture I can already assume I was doing this because I thought they would be happier with toys.
Then I look at how many times I say I love you to my pets and how useless it really is, as they don’t understand it. But I’ll continue to say it because it makes me feel better to know I do love them. Someday if they are able to understand, then they will know they were very much loved.
I can't remember where I heard this either on the discovery or National Geographic channel, some dolphins actually kill for fun! I couldn't believe it when I heard that, I love dolphins.
Current Mood: 
drained
Current Music: Blade - Bad Luck